“It’s heartbreaking,” he says.
“At a kindergarten check-up, kids used to weigh 35–40 pounds. Now, some are 80–100 pounds.”
But healthy eating, Fabisiak
finds, tips the scales in a better direction. And the best way to eat better is to grow it yourself, he tells the families in his practice.
He takes that passion for
gardening out into the community, too, demonstrating how to keep costs low and harvests high. He volunteers with local schools to help kids learn how to sow seeds and plant seedlings that are fun to watch grow and much better for them to eat than chocolate bars and potato chips.
“Kids will eat veggies they’ve
grown themselves,” Fabisiak says. For children, fast growers are best, such as cherry tomatoes, green beans and radishes —
class notes
which show discernible change almost overnight. And a great outcome of all his persuasive
Pied piper of garden plots
power, says Fabisiak, is that families see and believe. “A number of families have decided they want a healthier lifestyle, and home gardening helps the whole family improve life and weight.” — Joni Moths Mueller
Dr. Keith Fabisiak, Arts ’83, measures healthy babies by the inch and healthy eating by the square foot. Fabisiak began pacing out square-foot gardens during his pediatric residency in Ann Arbor, Mich., sowing and harvesting the maximum possible in 144 square inches. The pediatrician whose practice serves 2,000 children, newborn to 18, became a pied piper for planting, encouraging everyone to dig in. He brings the same spirited praise for seeds and soil to his peers at the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center in California, where Fabisiak is assistant chief of pediatrics.
Fabisiak’s top priority is kids, particularly kids who struggle with weight.
Since he opened his practice 20 years ago, he says the national rate of childhood obesity has doubled. 30
Summer 2014